1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to containers for the sterilized storage and dispensing of a catheter intended for insertion into a blood vessel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of central venous catheters is a daily routine during major surgical operations and in post-operational wards. The supply of fluid and nutrition and the taking of blood samples is facilitated by the use of these catheters both for the staff and for the patient. It is of great importance that the catheter is maintained in a sterile condition during the advancement into the vein which is made through a cannula which has been inserted into the vein. Since the catheters have a length of several hundreds of millimeters it is difficult to ensure the sterile condition without the use of special packagings from which the catheters may be fed directly through the cannula by means of a manually operable feeding means. In this manner the catheter will remain unexposed, thereby avoiding the risk of contamination.
Such a combined packaging and feeding device as shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,561,445. The catheter is coiled around an arcuate flange in a container, and by rotating the container relative to the lid the catheter will be fed through an outlet opening in the lid and further through a cannula connected to said outlet opening.
With this known device it is not possible to determine the length of the dispensed portion of the catheter except by the use of a graduation applied directly to the catheter, allowing the length of catheter advanced into the blood vessel to be determined by checking the length of catheter remaining in the container. However, it is very difficult to apply an easily readable graduation on a catheter, partly due to the small diameter of the catheter and partly due to the fact that any graduation markings may cause irregularities in the surface of the catheter which must be completely smooth in order to keep thrombus formation as low as possible. Furthermore, any markings on the catheter must be resistant to being dissolved by the blood.